


_Picture Perfect

by glenarvon



Series: _Brilliancy [11]
Category: Watch Dogs (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, is this fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 06:24:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7088875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glenarvon/pseuds/glenarvon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a moment in time, right before everything changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	_Picture Perfect

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to hold off posting this until after Gunmetal Sky, but that one needs a lot more work before another chapter is ready. Besides, it seems appropriate to post this on Lena's birthday (fictional people's birthdays are the only ones I remember, actually, it's embarrassing.)

 

[takes place in october 2012, after the merlaut job]

* * *

The sun still had enough strength to take the sting out of the autumn wind. The playground was filled with children, enjoying their freedom while their parents soaked in the warmth, strung up on benches all around the perimeter. 

"So," Nicky said in a tone of voice Aiden thought he recognised and didn't like, but he was relaxed and lethargic, unwilling to care if she dragged him into an argument. Besides, she sounded more playful than anything, so perhaps he was going to be all right after all.

"If you're out of a job — whatever job that is — you realise you've got to make up for standing us up three weekends in a row."

"You know what my job is," he said. "Internet stuff." Which sounded a little flimsy to his own ears, so he added, "And cars. I had that bouncer gig, but the club's closed for renovation. I'm completely free."

Nicky laughed.

Aiden glanced at her from the side, was relieved to see her smile hadn't faltered in the least. She wasn't angry at him and she didn't look like she was going to press him for details.

"I need you next weekend," Nicky said. "I'm in charge of this cheerleader group's anniversary, it'd be good if I don't have to pay a babysitter."

"I can do that," he said. "There's a game on saturday, we can go and then have some pizza, watch a horror movie."

Nicky chortled. "Right, no horror movies, but I'm okaying the rest. So we got a deal?"

Aiden slipped down a little on the bench, pushed his shoulders into the dry wood and sighed, let his eyes fall closed against the soft glare of the sun.

"No horror movies," he repeated dutifully. "I'll be there."

He sensed Nicky's grin spread, felt her shift and then she smacked his knee as she got up.

"Tell you what, I'm heading to Brewed Delight across the street. Do you want anything?"

"Coffee," he said. "And cheesecake. Definitely cheesecake."

He opened his eyes, caught sight of Nicky's thoughtful look as she glanced over the playground and took stock of her children's location, seemed to consider for a moment if it was worth calling them back, then she said, "I wonder where you put all of it. I really do," she remarked, only half-joking. "Don't lose them."

"I would never," Aiden said, all hilarity aside as he met Nicky's gaze. She nodded, to him or to herself, then headed off to the café.

Jacks was not far away from the bench in the sand. He'd been playing with a group of other children, some sort of who can swing highest contest, but their attention span had faltered before a winner could be determined and some of the children had ran off. For a while now, Jacks had been on his own, though, quietly and patiently building something in the sand. At first, Aiden had thought it was a castle, but as time passed, it looked more and more like some kind of rocket launch facility.

Watching Jacks' small face set in concentration, Aiden wondered what went on inside his head, tried to remember what it had been like for him at that age, to be so perfectly absorbed in some self-appointed task that somehow meant the world.

Lena…

His phone buzzed in his pocket, not for the first time that day and Aiden felt his good mood drip away with every artificial noise and the irritating vibrations against his hip. He should've turned it off, he had only himself to blame for not doing it.

He pulled the phone out, stared at the name bare of all surprise. He almost rejected the call, turned the phone off the way he should've done all along, but that would only prolong the problem.

He picked up the call, "I told you we were done."

He cleared his throat, stumbling over the rasp of his voice in his throat. It wasn't even anger anymore, he thought, it was just some vague feeling of annoyance, the kind you reserved for a persistent mosquito before you smeared it across the wall.

_"Are you serious?"_ Damien asked, sounded exactly as Aiden felt and perhaps that was the only thing they still had in common. _"How stupid are you?"_

"I ask myself that, too," Aiden said. "But I'm rectifying it. I'm not working with you again. Get it into your head."

He tried to calm himself and added, "And stop calling," he added.

_"I would, if you listened to reason for once,"_ Damien said. _"We aren't done with the Merlaut."_

"No, _you_ aren't. You fucked it up, you clean it up. If they're on your trail, it's not my problem."

_"And what do you think will happen if they catch up to me? I wasn't on-site, my boy, that was all you."_

The anger at the memory clawed its way up Aiden's throat, ill-at-ease in the warmth, beating up against the sound of children's laughter. He'd never wanted Damien there, not even when they were still partners, but it was becoming hard to bear.

"Are you threatening me?" Aiden asked sharply.

_"I'm telling you it's not over,"_ Damien hissed. _"I'm telling you we need to work together."_

Aiden only shook his head, gave a bored sigh and said, "No, we don't. Working together has got us into this mess. You're on your own, Damien."

On the other end of the line, Damien huffed, paused for a moment and the effort it took to compose himself traveled through the line like subliminal messaging.

_"I apologise,"_ Damien said, voice positively dripping with sarcasm. _"It was all my fault and I'm sorry. There, I said it. Can you now get your head out of your ass and think for a moment? Like the adult you pretend to be?"_

Aiden almost laughed, but pushed the sound down. It wouldn't send the correct message. "I could say that you've got to mean it, too," he pointed out. "But I don't really care if you do. Don't call me again."

He spotted Nicky with a paper bag heading towards him. It irritated him, because now he had to find a balance between the expression he showed her and the tone of voice he needed to use with Damien.

"If you call again, I'll come find you."

_"And do what? Beat up on me? Because that'll prove me wrong?"_ Damien demanded and snorted a mocking laugh.

"Because it'll shut you up," Aiden snapped and took the phone down, hung up before Damien had a chance to say anything else. Aiden glanced up and gave Nicky a quick smile before he concentrated on the phone again. He flipped through the phone, blocked all of Damien's numbers. Of course that'd barely slow him down for long, but he could look into it once he got home.

Nicky set the bag down on the bench.

"Angry ex?" she inquired.

"I guess," Aiden scowled.

Reaching into the bag, Nicky grinned. "That bad, huh? Do you want me to have a chat with her? Give her a little slap on your behalf?"

He chuckled at the thought, then shook his head. "I'll manage. Let's not talk about it. _Please."_

She laughed again.

She lifted out a plastic covered cheesecake and looked out over the playground and froze a little when she spotted Lena on top of a climbing structure, where she leaned to a wooden bare rather nonchalantly. She seemed to be talking to herself, but was most likely telling a story to the toy lamb strapped to her back with Nicky's silken shawl.

"You were watching them, right?" she asked, one eyebrow raised sceptically.

He followed the direction of her gaze. "'course," he said, and reached out a hand to point at the structure. "She took a clever route when she climbed up, used the trapeze rings before she swung over to the wall and that weird wooden balustrade thing. She's got good balance and hand-eye coordination. She's also pretty strong for her age, that's impressive."

Nicky looked down on him with her eyebrows raised sceptically high.

"I… don't really know what to say to that," she concluded.

"You don't want her climbing things, you tell her," Aiden added, but then smiled. "Don't worry. She's doing just fine."

Nicky sighed, but resolved to let it go, instead she looked over to Jacks, who had already spotted her and the cheesecake and had got up, jumped over with a gush of sand falling from his clothes.

"Raspberry!" he proclaimed eagerly, snatched up a piece and sat down on the bench. He would've used his hands, but Nicky sternly held a plastic fork in front of him and he relented.

"Lena!" Nicky called. "Come down _CAREFULLY_ and get some cake!"

Lena saw her, grinned widely and waved, she called something back but her voice didn't quite carry so far, but the movement of her lips spelt it out as "I'll use the slide!"

Lena turned back and skidded across a swaying rope bridge and to the roof above the highest of the slides that wound a few times around a tall pole.

By the time Lena rushed over, Nicky was already distributing the cheesecake, she had handed over a few pieces to other children as they wandered over. Aiden had slipped to the edge of the bench, coffee in one hand, cheesecake in the other.

Lena wedged herself between Aiden and Jacks on the bench, but had to stay on the edge because of the lamb on her back, careful not to crush it.

"Aiden's going to watch you two guys next weekend," Nicky said. "Good idea?"

"I want to go to Pawnee!" Lena demanded.

"Pawnee?" Nicky asked and looked at Aiden across the children's heads, caught him pulling a grimace.

"It's late in the year for camping," he said. "It gets cold at night."

Lena's little face crunched up in consideration.

"I like Pawnee," Jacks remarked.

"I wanted to take you to a game," Aiden offered. "Have pizza and a… movie."

Nicky reached out behind the back of the bench and, wordlessly, smacked his shoulder.

"A funny movie!" Aiden clarified, laughing. "A totally age-appropriate movie!"

Lena turned to look at him. "Okay," she said. "But I like Pawnee better."

"We can go to a motel," Jacks offered reasonably.

"Would that be okay?" Nicky asked Aiden, clearly with an eye on money, though he was careful to never imply he was short and, in fact, tried to make sure she knew she could come to him if she needed any. Nicky, however, tended to assume it was tight because of his long list of unsteady jobs. He wasn't going to tell her what a good fixer made in a day, she'd know what they were doing for that kind of pay-check. 

He sighed, "Yeah, it's fine. It's just… that whole Neanderthal stuff."

"What's Neanderthal?" Lena asked.

"It means your uncle is scared when he has to leave the big city," Nicky explained, chuckling.

"Oh," Lena said and thought about it. She transferred the cheesecake into her other hand and slipped her skinny arm under his, tucking his arm close to her side.

"I'll watch out for you." 

"Me, too," Jacks announced.

"Alright, I've got nothing to fear then," Aiden said. "Let's go to Pawnee."


End file.
